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Pine Ridge, South Dakota

Oglala Nation Education Resource Center

For updated stories from our work, click here (PDF, 35K).

Hou Mitukeyepi,

Recently, a group of 22 Native Leaders met in Portland. They drafted a letter in support of Timothy Caffery, who has been imprisoned for nearly 27 years. I am asking you to join with them by adding your name to their letter. Here's the link to the petition.

In addition, here is the link to an interview of Jamie Bissonette, Marletta Pacheco and Richard Iron Cloud on KPFA Radio in Berkeley, CA regarding Healing Justice & Tim Caffrey.

-- Richard Iron Cloud

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Background on AFSC's work on Pine Ridge

AFSC's Oglala Nation Education Resource Center in Porcupine, SD has always been centered on sovereignty and decolonization. With the activism, rediscovery and recovery of the Lakota culture in the sixties and seventies, to mourning the loss of a life way, language, and culture in the eighties to the rebuilding of the tiospayes (extended families) in the nineties, now a new millennium promises a commitment of action to these ideals. Our current program plan focus is decolonization. Native People who are in decolonization mode are constantly reading, thinking, reframing, and dialoguing in order to find ways to decrease oppressive conditions.

• Decolonization work focuses on social justice and peace as my ancestors desired peace with the United States Government.  In 1868 they smoked the Chanupa (pipe of peace) that was given to my ancestors by a female representative of the creator who we refer to as Pte San Win, a.k.a. Woape or White Buffalo Calf Woman; she brought instructions by which the traditional Lakota continue to abide.  
  
• The United States Constitution in Article IV states that treaties are the supreme law of the land.  The Bi-lateral treaties of 1851 and 1868 were made between two sovereigns with equal status under the law.  However after my ancestors were put on reservations and the United States agreed to be their trustee, they lived to see social injustice through imperial acts of Congress.  The imperialism continues with our land base taken away and our water rights taken over by states.  We see the United States continuing this process with the war in the Middle East.

Overarching Vision

The decolonization of the Lakota will ultimately allow them true self determination and a solid Lakota identity reaffirming Lakota culture.  Decolonization of the Lakota will have shared benefit to the United States as a whole.  This will allow healing through the reconciliation of past injustice against the Lakota.

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has had over six generations of colonization, where our life way has been forced to transform scores of times through violence and oppression.

The following is a quote from Leech Lake Ojibwe Tribal member Scott Richard Lyons about the young Red Lake school shooter: “Let us stay focused on the big picture, the social context in which children, including but not only Natives, are raised. From the very moment of his birth, Jeff's life was defined by violence - the violence of community poverty, the violence of racism, the violence of little respect and few opportunities, the violence of guns, security systems, punitive politics and growing militarism. Until these acts of everyday violence are put to an end, how can we ever expect our children to live peacefully? How can we raise our children to treat themselves and others with manaaji'idiwin or deep respect? We are to respect others, no matter how young or weak or strange, in part because what goes around eventually comes around.” 

Goals of AFSC's Work on Pine Ridge

• To build a better Lakota consciousness on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The youth will have an understanding of cultural oppression, neo-imperialism, the poverty draft and decolonization.
  
• Work with tribal, state and governmental agencies in reconciliation and restorative justice.
  
• Join with AFSC’s Native American programs in common endeavors, e.g. to save sacred sites, culture & Indigenous issues.

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